When I was in college, I read a book by the “People’s Shark” Daymond John called “The Power of Broke.” In his book, he explains how having no money to start his business made him extremely scrappy and cost conscious. This ended up being a huge advantage for his business.
Because he had no money, he didn’t have the option to invest in ads, hire employees, or outsource a single thing in his business. He swears that having no money at the start, made FUBU what it eventually became (+$6 billion in lifetime sales).
The same can be absolutely true in your cleaning business. In 2024, our business added $150k in revenue (going from $92k to $242k) in a single year with ~$1,000 in ad spend. During that year, I learned how to grow our business organically and gained skills that would have been impossible if I had money to burn. The fact is that we had no money. Even though we were grossing ~$20k per month, we hardly had any profit because I had hired a full-time manager to operate the business.
I learned how to create content for social media, perfected our cold outreach strategy, and narrowed in on our focus on Airbnb cleaning. None of those things would have been possible if I had just dumped money into paid ads each month to grow.
Now that we’re significantly bigger and I’m pouring $6k-$8k per month into ads, I’m realizing we’re not nearly as scrappy as we used to be. I’m suddenly okay with mediocre returns on our advertising. Something I would have never been able to afford earlier.
So if you’re just starting out and have no money to burn or you’re large and have plenty left over each month, channel your inner scrappiness and use “the power of broke.” Your business will be better for it!
P.S. if you’re a vacation rental cleaner or you own a cleaning company that specializes in vacation rentals, join me and a panel of other business owners at The Feast from Well & Good
RSVP at this link and I’ll see you there!
Until next time!
Logan
